


Act 2: That's My Desire

by thesecondseal



Series: More Than Smoke: A Noir AU [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Noir, Angst, Blood and Injury, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Film Noir, Fluff, Mild Blood, Sexual Content, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-02 19:46:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5261258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesecondseal/pseuds/thesecondseal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the Kirkwall docks going up in flames and the city swarming with brass and reds, Cullen and Essa hideout by the sea. (apparently without clothing)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Indestructible

Essa’s cottage was everything that Kirkwall could not be. Clean and bright and teased through with fresh salt air. Cullen remembered little of the hike to reach it. He recalled a long stretch of white sand beneath waning moonlight, the sea a crush of velvet roaring on his right. There had been a short climb up to the headland, then a gate covered in slumbering morning glory. There was a white picket fence behind which waited a pair of mabari—Greta and Soldier—the latter of whom now sprawled in the kitchen door watching him warily as Cullen applied a butterfly bandage to the gash on Essa’s cheek.

“Thank you.” She didn’t meet his gaze, hadn’t often since their kiss at the docks.

“I think you’ll live,” he said gruffly.

She almost smiled, seemed to think better of it. “And you?” she asked. “You took the worst of it. I imagine the shock is wearing off and you’ve been feeling the bruises since the train.”

She wasn’t wrong, but he wouldn’t be able to take full stock of his injuries until he got out of his clothes. Essa reached for the buttons of his coat and Cullen flushed.

“I’m afraid it’s rather done for,” she seemed oblivious to his discomfort as her hands moved slowly down the row. “I noticed the back is shredded in places. Hopefully your coat took the brunt of the damage and that lovely suit of yours is intact.”

Her hands spread up across the wool, fingers skimming, feather-light over his chest before she caught his lapels and began to push the coat up and over his shoulders. Cullen wondered if she had felt his heart hammering in the brief sweep of her palm. When his coat slid down, trapping his arms at his side, Essa sighed and let go abruptly.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was low, smoky around the apology. She put two hasty steps between them just as he was getting comfortable with the idea of how much he liked her where she was. Cullen tried to imagine what she thought she had to be sorry for.

The familiar way she touched him. If that was it, then he owed her the same. They were certainly more physically at ease with one another than they should have been. But that was the least of their transgressions. She could apologize for the warmth of her body so close to his. The scent of her tangling the air around him, making it impossible for him to think about anything but kissing her again. The vivid fantasy he would now never be rid of, Essa not stopping with his coat, but stripping him bare and kicking that suspicious hound out of the kitchen.

“For what?” Cullen murmured, not trusting his voice to anything louder.

“The coat,” she answered, clearing her throat once and reaching for a bottle of whisky on an otherwise empty counter.  “It was a good cut of cloth. I assume it cost you a pretty penny.”

It had, and it would be nearly impossible to repair.  A shame really. Cullen found he had a greater fondness for the coat now that Essa’s fists had tangled twice in the heavy wool.

“First shower is yours.” She nodded past Soldier to the short hallway off of the kitchen. “Bathroom is the first door on the left.”

Cullen nodded, pulling the bunched sleeves of his coat off of his arms before dropping it over the back of one cheerful turquoise chair.

“Towels are in the linen closet behind the door.” Her composure rallied behind the extension of hospitality. Cullen watched her place the bottle on the kitchen table. She reached back to take a pair of highballs from cabinet. “I’ll get you something to wear while we try to see how much damage was done to your suit.”

“Thank you.”

“Not at all.” She jerked her chin at the dog and Soldier abandoned his post to allow Cullen to pass.

*

It was senseless, the way he made her feel. As if she was indestructible and irreplaceable at the same time. Essa ran one finger over the carefully applied bandage and wanted to punch something.  What was  _wrong_  with her?  Losing all sense over a pretty man. Hadn’t she learned that lesson the first time? Obviously not. But Andraste, help her, this was different.

Worse, she decided furiously.

Essa stalked through her cottage, tearing off the trappings of the Tourney, the smoke-choked remnants of an impossible night. She shoved her boots and dirty coat into her work closet, staunchly ignoring the sound of running water coming from her bathroom. Soldier followed faithfully at her heels, darting a glance at the bathroom door only once. Their space had rarely been invaded by another person. Only Dennet, and the man was nearly four-legged himself so he hardly counted.

Cullen, on the other hand, counted in far too many ways. Essa scowled back at the closed door, trying—and failing—not to think about the fact that he was naked on the other side of it, standing in her tub surrounded by all of her little indulgences. The fine soap, the softly scented tea lights, the pretty glass bottles she ordered twice a year from merchant in Val Royeaux. She felt more exposed than he was. Essa huffed out a breath, chided her wandering mind. The last thing she needed was to be thinking about the two of them in her bathroom, naked together. Metaphorically or otherwise.

“By the Mabari!” Essa swore, stomping to her room. Greta looked up from the bed, a mocking expression in her dark eyes. The dog sighed once, loudly, then hopped down, padding past Essa to the front door to go back outside. There was too much noise for her, and she had obviously decided that Cullen wasn’t dangerous.

“You could be wrong,” Essa groused, turning back to open the door for the dog. “He could be a dangerous killer.” Soldier licked her calf as he fell in after his mate. “You’ll feel terrible if he murders me.” Essa closed the door behind them.

“Traitors,” she muttered, yanking her dress over her head. As the silk passed over her face, she caught a tease of scent, something dark and woodsy and—

Essa tossed the garment away. It landed on the bed, a deep puddle of blue across crisp white linen, and Essa imagined that Cullen had been the one to toss it there, a moment before–

“I do not have time for this.” Essa cut her imagination off with sharp shake of her head. 

Her body disagreed. Her breasts were swollen, aching and tender, ribs scraped sensitive against the soft armor of her modified shoulder holster. The slim lines of heavy compression fabric did not usually irritate her skin; she’d gone out of her way to ensure the concealment was comfortable, but Essa had never been so impatient to get her body completely bare. She didn’t think she could survive a shower with him in the next room, and she had no idea what she was going to put on so that she could return to the kitchen.

“Oh!” There was surprise in the syllable, followed swiftly by: “I’m sorry. I—“

Essa turned, a cool rebuke on her tongue, to find Cullen leaning in the open door of her bedroom, a towel around his hips, and a second draped around his neck. His gaze was politely averted, but the gleam in his tawny eyes wasn’t nearly as apologetic as he sounded.

“You are not.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts one hand hovering over her gun, the other covering the badge that rode in its own holster pocket just beneath her arm.

The scar on his upper lip rose, a quirk of mirth that he didn’t try to hide. “I’m not,” he admitted, but he kept his stare—mostly—on the floor.

Essa wasn’t nearly so polite.

*

Cullen tried not to stare. He told himself it was the incredibly unique compression holster she was still wearing that drew his attention so far beyond propriety,  not the fact that Essa was standing naked in her bedroom, chin lifted in defiance of any vulnerability he might be so foolish as to presume. Maker’s breath! The woman was a stunning assault. He could no more call her beautiful than he would have wasted that pale description on a storm surge or wildfire.  Every dangerous curve was washed in bronze skin and silver war songs.

And, Andraste preserve him, Cullen wanted to hear every one.

“What did you do?” Essa demanded, not bothering to cover up. Her arms were folded beneath her breasts and he knew her right hand was hovering over her gun.  She tapped her toes at him expectantly. “Run around just long enough to get wet?”

The question surprised a laugh out of Cullen. His mother had used the same expression when he and his siblings were too quick with their showers.  

“I’m afraid the suit didn’t make it,” he said, turning his back to her.

He shouldn’t have been pleased to hear her gasp of dismay, but he was. She closed the distance between them on silent feet and he felt the warmth from her skin a moment before her hands pressed on either side of the worst wound, before she moved to the next, her breath hot on his skin as she muttered curses.

“Bathroom,” she ordered, pulling the towel down from around his neck and wiping at a new trail of blood. “You’re lucky it’s mostly shallow, but digging out the shrapnel is going to hurt.”

She pushed at him forward, hands hovering near his waist as she followed him back to the bathroom.

“Do you—“ Cullen cleared his throat, stared at a spot of wall high above her head. “Want to go put something on? I’m not exactly bleeding to death.”

“And then have to spend more time tonight getting blood out of my clothes,” She shoved past him, opened the medicine cabinet, and began yanking supplies down and dropping them in the sink. “No, thank you. You’re not going to be facing me anyway.”

She pointed at the tub. “Get in. Easier clean up.”

When he didn’t move she raised a brow in challenge. “Do  _you_ want me to go put something on?”

Cullen dragged his gaze from pristine white subway tile and glared at her.  

“Oh,” Essa nearly doubled over in a laugh. “You are a rare breed, Rutherford.”

She turned to the linen closet, tugged a short robe from the hook on the back of the door and slipped it on. “If I get blood on this, you’re going to buy me a new one.”

For a woman who seemed happy to stomp around naked, she had expensive taste in clothes. He was about to grumble something to that effect. Hide behind sarcasm instead of relying on constant thoughts of what sort of behavior his mother would expect from him in an attempt to not think about how close he and Essa were and how little was between them. But then he followed the flow of wine-colored silk, lingered too long on the rise and fall of her breath.

“How do you want me?” he asked turning sharply toward the tub.

 


	2. No Regrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW

“Do you want a list or are you going to need visual aids?” The quip bounced off of the tile and Essa was too tired, too distracted by every drop of water and blood on his back to waste the energy on regretting her smart mouth.  She huffed out a breath and her robe felt like coarse wool against her oversensitive skin. “It was a joke, Rutherford. Sometimes I’m just trying to get under your skin.”

Cullen tensed, one hand on edge of the large claw-footed tub, and Essa had a moment to wonder if she had goaded him past his usually unflappable patience. It had been a long night,what with the explosions and the train-hopping and all, and the man did still have bits of metal and wood embedded in his back.

“If you wanted under me, Trevelyan, you only had to ask.”

He moved too blighted fast, but Essa couldn’t form coherent enough sentences to complain. One moment he was standing with his back to her, a rather intriguing blush creeping down his neck, the next he had her pinned with his body to her bathroom door.

“I don’t ask,” she retorted, heart pounding fire through her veins. “I badger and prod.”

Essa shrugged, gaze carefully aloof as she fought every impulse not to writhe against him. “Sometimes, if the situation requires, I command.”

She lifted her chin, took a shallow breath that still pushed her breasts against his damp chest.

“I don’t take orders well.”  Cullen told her, one hand coming up to brace against the door beside her head.

“Then you are working for the wrong people.”  

“Not the first time,” he replied.

His other hand smoothed down her side, starting out careful around her concealed firearm, growing bolder when there was nothing but silk between them. Essa shivered and he paused, fingers gathering up the short hem of her robe. His knuckles brushed the top of her thigh and the simple touch had her sagging back against the door.

“I’m going to need one of those suggestions you were offering,” Cullen said, eyes steady on her face. “Something simple. We can work up to the ones that require detailed pictures.”

“What?” Essa blinked at him in confusion and a dark smile twisted his lips.

“What do you want, Essa?” Her name rolled over sweet and rich like the brandy she occasionally indulged in. There were good reasons why she should push him away—a number of them—but damned if she could remember them.

“You.” She met the challenge in his gaze with stark honesty.

After the kiss at the docks, she was expecting gentleness, had mentally prepared herself for that honeyed brutality, but his lips crashed into hers nearly hard enough to bruise, and she could only exult in the unyielding consumption.

Finally, she thought, relief so sharp she wanted to weep. Finally something she understood.

His hand slid up, palm slightly rough against the soft skin of her hip. Essa yielded into the pressure and he leaned back from the wall, grabbed her ass with both hands and lifted her, lips tearing from hers, to trail greedily down the taut column of her throat. She wound her legs around his waist, heels crossed low against that blighted towel, pulling him firmly against her.

“Maker, yes.” She wasn’t usually one for blasphemies, profanities sure, but she didn’t often call on the divine, but Cullen had rocked his hips forward so damned perfectly that shades of pleasure were still burning across her field of vision.

“Flissa said you weren’t the type,” the words strangled into a moan as his mouth closed over the curve of her neck, teeth worrying at her skin before nipping down to her shoulder.

“I’m not.” His chuckle drifted cool against the moisture he had left on her skin. “She said the same about you.”

There was a question at the end, punctuated with a swipe of his tongue over her collarbone.

“Normally…mmmhmmm…” Essa’s breath frayed, and Cullen didn’t give her a chance to pick up the end. He came back to her lips, kissed the attempted elaboration away with a long and determined savoring that left her impatient and breathless, hips moving restlessly against him.

“Normally I’m not,” she finished doggedly, turning her face away, pulling air into her lungs as if she were starving for it along with his touch. His lips fell like wishes into the hollow of her throat and Essa’s head dropped back with a thud against the door. “Too volatile.”

“No argument there.”

She could barely hear his chuckle over the rushing song of her own blood. She burned like magefire in his arms, knew that her irises had spun from grey to blue flame. Essa shut them fast, called herself six kinds of fool, but made no attempt to get away.

“And you?” Essa’s questions broke in waves against the stalwart distraction of his lips. “Were you sworn to the Maker’s Bride or did some dame break your heart?”

Her hands wandered down his chest, thumbs running along the ridges of muscled defined by a life of discipline and service. She toyed idly with the edge of the towel that suddenly seemed much less secure around his waist. One tug, she thought, one subtle shift of their bodies and nothing else would matter but the climb.

“Because there are cures for that.” She kissed him then, an easy tangle of teeth and tongue as if there weren’t demons lurking for them in both their pasts.

“Then yes, let’s say it’s heartbreak.” He parted the front of her robe slowly, dragged the silk in a torturous glide over pebbling skin and tight peaks.

By the Mabari, Essa swore silently. “I’m not going to regret this nearly as much as I should.”

Cullen drew his index finger in an unhurried line down her sternum and her breath stuttered. He traced the jagged pucker of an old scar, eyes deep like burning amber, as he followed the line of some long forgotten blade.

“I’m going to need you to kiss me,” she breathed.

“I’ve been kissing you, haven’t you noticed?”

She could feel his lips hovering over the frantic beat of her heart. Cullen blew across her skin and Essa flinched, nerves strung to begging.

“That’s not what I—“

His lips closed over one nipple and her protest tumbled into nothing, became a string of broken reassurances. He swirled his tongue over the tight peak and her hands were suddenly in his hair, fingers pulling urgently at wet curls as he sucked lightly once, twice, then hard enough to drag a hoarse cry from her lips.

“Fuck.” Her voice echoed harshly against the tiles and she felt him smile against her breast. “Do that again.”

He moved to the other, dropped an almost chaste peck in the valley between them. Essa’s hands fell to his shoulders, gripped hard, blunt nails adding insult to existing injuries as he tore a scream from her throat. He reached up to push her robe from her shoulders with one hand, fingers sliding beneath the soft everknit band of her holster and Essa jerked.

“Leave it,” she said tersely, reaching down between them for the securing fold of his towel. She unbalanced them, or perhaps she just surprised him, either way, he slapped both hands to the door beside her, braced his arms as she touched him through the cotton. “Maker’s breath, Rutherford, can’t you just fuck me?”

“Is that what you want?”

She gave a ruthless twist of wrist and the towel came undone, staying mostly in place, trapped in the cage of their bodies.  

“I would think that was pretty obvious.” She reached across the short diagonal to the medicine cabinet on the adjacent wall and fumbled blindly inside, knocking extra gauze and vet wrap into the sink along with the box she was after.

“Having second thoughts?” she asked, just in case his body wasn’t speaking for the rest of him.

“Have I bled out or suffered a head injury in the last few minutes?” He let go of the wall with one arm, offered it to her for balance.

Essa laughed, then leaned toward the sink, snagged the condom from the top of the growing pile of the first aid supplies still waiting in the sink. She slapped it into his hand.

“You have not,” she bit her lip, fought for what she thought was a valiant victory not to grind any more against him. She stared at his injuries in the foggy mirror. “Though if you’d like, I can patch you up first.”

 


	3. Mending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some UST for your day. :)

There were a lot of ways Cullen had expected his first night at the docks to go. Naked in Essa’s bathroom with her legs around his hips, and a condom in one hand wasn’t one of them, but who was he to question the Maker’s will? Right, like he had ever been able to do casual sex.

And as if anything with Essa would ever be casual for him.

“Rutherford?”

She was staring at him and Cullen realized that he had been silent for too long, trapped in the tangle of her arms and legs, lost in the warm press of their upper bodies. Her breasts were perfect; he wanted hours just to feast on them. Would she allow him the luxury of worship? He considered asking, even knowing that would she probably call him trite in that flat, snarky tone he enjoyed so much. She shifted between him and the door, and they overbalanced. When he caught her beneath the arm with his closed hand, his wrist was against her gun, forearm grazing the side of her breast.

It would be worth it.

For a moment, Essa’s chin touched his shoulder and she held onto him, almost in a hug.

“I’m sorry.” Her sigh was wistful. “I should get you patched up.”

She let him go quickly, giving him a light push as her arms and legs released him, leaving only memory. Cullen managed to catch the loosened towel before it fell from between them, and Essa leaned back against the door, a cocky grin on her face.

“Of course, afterward, if you’re still up for it…” there was restrained laughter in her voice at the obviously intentional pun, but it didn’t quite spill into her eyes. She stared up at him, doubt moving like smoke across the grey.

Cullen snugged the towel back around his hips, secured it in place with a deft fold, and caught her face in his hands.

“Maker’s breath,” he muttered, just in case she wasn’t certain of his feelings. “I hope neither of us comes to our senses by then.”

He kissed her soundly, a loud, playful smack, and watched the shadows fade from her eyes.

“Night like tonight?” Essa rebounded quickly. “Not likely.”

Well, they at least had that settled. He reached for the front of her robe and she watched him carefully as he closed the silk over her body, tying the belt with the same brisk efficiency that he had put what little modesty he had left to rights.

“Tub,” Essa ordered again before he could make the mistake of asking.

Her stare traveled down his body, dragging with it the memory of her touch, and Cullen held a groan tightly between his back teeth as she turned to the sink, reminding him that even if he didn’t have enough blood flow to rest of his body to notice, he was wounded. There was no small amount of wood and metal debris lodged in his skin.

“Do you want me to get the whisky?” she asked.

“I’ve had worse.”

Essa grunted. “That wasn’t the question, but if you want the suffering, Rutherford, I’ll bring it to you.”

He made it into the deep, claw-foot tub without further incident and knelt, knees and shins on the cold coated iron.  The discomfort was good for him, he reminded himself, and he bowed his head, took a slow, steadying breath before dropping into the familiar stillness of long held vigils.

“Shit,” Essa muttered as she stepped into the tub behind him. “We shouldn’t have—“

“It’s not that bad.” His voice echoed against his knees.

“No,” she agreed and he heard a smile in her voice. “No regrets right.”

She laughed softly, and he wasn’t sure if she was mocking herself or him. Probably both of them.

“This is going to hurt. A lot,” she added.

He listened as she made her preparations, heard the sound of glass and plastic, then smelled the sharp sting of isopropyl alcohol as it teased through the air. It splashed down against the soles of his feet and the astringent scent grew stronger, drew closer as she leaned over him.

“I’m going to start at the top,” she said, hand coming to rest cool and wet on his shoulder. Alcohol dripped into the nearest wound and he hissed in surprise.

“Can’t be helped,” she mumbled as if his sharply indrawn breath had been an accusation.

“It’s alright.” He couldn’t help wanting to offer comfort, even knowing the woman was nearly indestructible. Maybe because of that. “Just wasn’t expecting it. I should have been.”

Her heard her swallow. “I’ll work my way down….I think…I think the worst is up here.”

“You squeamish, Trevelyan?” It would surprise him if she was, but not everyone comfortable spilling blood had the stomach for staunching it.

“Nah…” she took a breath. “It’s stupid.” And when she laughed this time he knew it was self-mockery. “I’m worried about hurting you.”

“I’m not so fragile as that,” Cullen said gruffly.

She chuckled and he felt her breath hot on his chilled skin. “First one.”

The cold tips of a pair of tweezers sank into the wound sending a shriek of alcohol burning through torn flesh. He felt the metal withdraw, heard a clink as Essa dropped whatever she pulled from his skin to the floor of the tub.

“Only a few dozen more to go,” she informed him from between her teeth. “Get comfortable.”

Half an hour passed while Cullen knelt between the cold floor of the tub and the warmth of Essa’s body hovering above him. He stared at the backs of his eyelids as the tweezers made what had to be a hundred journeys back and forth from his skin, the only sound in the room was the soft clatter of whatever Essa pulled out of his skin and dropped into the tub. She made a handful of trips back and forth to the sink, movements precise and efficient. He could tell she had done her share of first aid, but she was still rattled. He felt every shift of her feet behind him, held his breath when she was concentrating too hard to breathe. She paused twice to wipe blood from his skin with an antiseptic-soaked cloth and twice again to bandage closed the worst of the wounds.

Cullen couldn’t remember ever being so aware of another person’s body. Her robe caught on the edge of his towel, dragged twice across his back before she grumbled that he would have to get over his “chantry sensibilities.” He opened his eyes, glanced to the side just in time to watch the silk pool like blood on the black and white patterned floor.

And she was naked again except for the .38 strapped to her side.

“You aren’t cold?” he asked.

Essa was a silent wall of heat behind him.

“No,” she answered shortly, but then she sighed, muttered a string of curses before she apologized. “You are though. I’m sorry. I don’t get cold. We’re almost done here, I promise.”

He tried to assure her that he was fine, but she would hear nothing of it. Another sharp tear of tape and she pressed the last bandage in place.

“There,” she said on a long shuddering exhale. “All done. I was worried you would need stitches for this one.” Her hand moved up to his shoulder. “But the butterflies are holding.”

She stepped out of the bathtub again and shrugged back into her robe.

“Clothes.” She nodded absently at him, gaze skittering away as she turned toward the door. “I’ll be right back.”

“Essa?”

She spun back toward him, robe gaping. Cullen kept his gaze politely averted as he got to his feet.

”I’m sorry,” he said, doubting both his temerity and his honesty as he gave her the apology he knew she deserved. “For my behavior earlier.”

Essa blinked at him. Scowled. Took a breath and blinked at him again. “Honestly, Rutherford, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“For—Well…for—“ He shot her a glare, saw mirth in her eyes when their gazes collided. “You know exactly what for!”

She grinned. “I do. But don’t insult me by apologizing for it.”

*

By the Mabari, she had lost her mind. Essa hurried to her bedroom, pulling off her robe and wrestling out of her holster before she had even made the door. She slammed her shoulder into the door casing, hard enough that she knew she had added a bruise to all the others. She slapped everknit, revolver, and her blighted badge into the second drawer of her dresser with a sigh of relief. Too close. She tried not to stare at her shaking hands. He had come too close, too many times, to finding that damning shield of red and gold.

What was she doing?

“Essa?”

And why would he not stop using her first name? Andraste’s mercy! He had to know the effect it had on her. His voice poured over her like the finest whisky. She wanted to sip those syllables from his lips, drag him down into her until there was nothing but slow burning gold.

“Here.” She threw the linen pants at him without looking, winced immediately when she realized he would have had to move quickly to catch them. “Dammit, I’m sorry.”

She turned too quickly, sank to the floor in front of him to pick the pants up. Cullen took a sudden step back and Essa flushed. Fuck her, she couldn’t remember the last time she had blushed.

“Thank you.” He was, of course, too much of a blighted gentleman to call her on her fumbling.

“They’re mine,” she said, not looking at him as she rummaged for an oversized flannel shirt. “That too.”

Because she couldn’t let him think he was wearing another man’s clothes?

“Fuck me…” and this time she said the words aloud.

“I thought we had tabled that discussion,” Cullen said in a tone so dry she was afraid to glare at him lest it catch fire.

Essa closed her eyes. “I’m naked again aren’t I?”

“You are.” He seemed less concerned about it this time, so that was a step in…well in some direction.

“Are you pretending to be polite?” she demanded.

“Not this time.” She wanted so badly to see his face. Was he laughing at them both or had he withdrawn behind that impassive mask he wore in Kirkwall? “Do you really not notice when you’re naked?”

“I forget.” She grinned, but she didn’t open her eyes. “I don’t wear much when I’m home.”

And she damn well wasn’t going to bother covering up now.

“There’s an elfroot draught in the cabinet by the sink in the kitchen. Drink it. Whisky’s on the table and there’s food in the fridge. Fix whatever you want. I’m going to take a shower and _put on some clothes_ ,” she added very deliberately. “I won’t be long.”

She handed him the shirt, reached blindly for a second.  

“Thank you.”

Essa snapped her eyes open. “What for?”

She resolutely stared at his face, not at the play of muscles in his chest, not at that Maker-forsaken towel still hanging with a devotion she could hardly fault to his narrow hips. She was not remembering the feel of him between her legs, or the leap of his pulse beneath that single questing slide of her fingers.

And she absolutely was not thinking about scoring the sharp grace of his hipbones with her teeth.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

A faint smile tugged one corner of his mouth, brightening the pale scar that bisected his upper lip.

“Thank you for everything.” He placed a kiss on her cheek and Essa startled beneath the gentle touch, skin twitching like a fly stung horse. “Now go get clean and dressed before we end up testing your very fine first aid work.”

“You said that,” Essa groaned. When had he gotten so bold? Oh, right. About the time he pressed her against her bathroom door and kissed her until she couldn’t think straight.

“I did.” He wasn’t touching her, but Cullen’s voice was doing things to her body that were making it increasingly difficult for her to contemplate the handful of strides back to her bathroom.

“I’m supposed to be the one shocking you with my forwardness, Rutherford.”

He chuckled, and Essa found herself swaying toward him, rising up on her toes so that she could feel the change in air temperature around him. He was so blessedly cool. His skin would feel like balm against hers.

“How’s the other foot feel?” Cullen asked, teasing and cheerfully smug.

“Like I should kick you.” She muttered the words against his chin, felt the soft brush of the clothes in his arms against her breasts.  “Like I should kick you really hard.”

“I think you have the wrong verb, Trevelyan.”

He kissed her, a slow smoldering quest of perfect lips over hers. No chantry boy should kiss like that, she decided, moaning against the reckless slide of tongue. She sighed into his mouth, clutched her shirt so tightly in her hands she heard the cotton protest between her fingers. When his teeth caught gently at her top lip, she couldn’t stop the whimper that escaped her throat.

“Go. Take. Your. Medicine.” Essa pushed past him. “Before we do something stupid.”

He had been the one with sense earlier, and she did not appreciate that the task seemed to have fallen to her. Next time, she decided. No one was thinking clearly and making good choices. And that was final.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He was laughing as she scurried past him to the bathroom, but then so was she. Essa closed the door between them, leaned back against it with a melting sigh.

“Nope,” she said loudly, pushing herself toward the tub as she realized her mistake. Every harsh, desperate breath, every hard press of flesh, came pouring back over her skin in a scalding wave.  “Cold shower it is.”


	4. The Luxury of Worship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW. For real. This may be the most explicit thing I've written, but I'm not sure it counts as explicit? I mean, it still doesn't feel nearly as naughty as the Helpful Envelope Post. Nevertheless, here there be sex and lots of feelings.

Cullen couldn’t remember a night he had passed with such uninterrupted sleep. If he’d had nightmares, they had lacked their usual power, and whatever of them may have lingered fled before he even opened his eyes.  The sound of the sea filled his ears, a constant seeking, a perpetual retreat to and from the shore. Kirkwall was a rapidly fading memory, and that ancient roar washed him new,  left him sprawled beneath soft, weathered linen and the watercolor brushes of dawn through plain white curtains. There was salt in the fresh air. It mingled with the scents of citrus and pepper, a light persistence of wood smoke, and something earthy, a clean, faint musk that had to be Essa.

For a moment, he let himself pretend that this was his life. The cottage on the headland, a garden outside. He hadn’t seen much beyond the picket fence and the morning glory, but there had been fresh vegetables on her kitchen counter, small tomatoes and peas waiting to be shelled. She had admitted to growing them, hair falling forward to hide her face as if she confessed some great sin. He should have kissed her then, Cullen thought. A soft, sweet brush of lips as they moved together in the quiet night, making BLTs and sloughing off the adrenaline sting of the frantic hours that had passed before.

He eased out of the bed, pulled the sheets and the lightweight cotton blanket back into place, folded the extra blankets she had carefully piled on him the night before. There was a small pot-bellied wood stove in the living room where she had slept, but it wasn’t close enough to winter for her to have any firewood laid up. She had apologized, decided it was better that he take the bed anyway, more room for him to sleep comfortably on his stomach. He had fallen asleep on her pillow, expecting frustrating dreams.

“Good morning.” She stood in the doorway, still wearing the long flannel shirt she had gone to bed in. The plaid was a riot of orange and teal, cast shades of blue over the grey of her eyes. A pair of knee-high wellingtons rose up to her knees, the rubber a garish shade of green, and she had yet to brush her hair; it hung in a sleep-tangled nest around her face.

“Good morning.” He couldn’t help smiling at her and was rewarded for his courage with a grin.

“I’m heading out to feed the horse, grab some eggs for breakfast. How’s your back?”

Cullen faced away from her and began unbuttoning the more sedate shirt she had given him to wear.

“Much better,” he said letting the flannel slide down his shoulders so that she could see the worst of them.

He didn’t hear her move, but suddenly he felt the warmth of her behind her.

“Going to touch,” she murmured and he realized then that it was something she did often, whether by speech or careful leading motions. She did not put her hands on him without warning.

He stood quietly as her fingers traced the edges of his bandages, palm resting flat beside some of the worst.

“It’s always hard for me to tell,” she said. “But I don’t think there’s any heat to them. You’ve healed quickly. Must be elfroot sensitive.”

She stepped back and he shrugged back into his shirt. Her hands were at the buttons before he could reach them and she had closed half of them before she seemed to catch herself.

“I’m sorry.” She stepped back again, bewilderment on her face as she shook her head. “You…you make me forget myself, Rutherford.”

She was halfway down the hall when Cullen managed to call after her.

“Do you want to?”

“What?” she asked without stopping.

“Forget yourself?” Something in the morning air made him want to be other than he was.

Essa laughed, the sound sweet on darker edges. “Maybe I do.”

He trailed after her, stood on the back porch and watched as she crossed the yard. The cottage was surrounded by a wild garden, vegetables and flowers growing together in large cheerful beds.  The white fence was covered in climbing vines, morning glory trumpets and grapes bursting with bold blue notes. She paused at the gate as she closed it behind her, glanced back at him, a bemused smile on her face. Cullen wondered if she felt what he did, the effortless perfection of a morning out of time.

Beyond the cottage garden the headland opened up, a long flat spread of land that had been sown with rye and wild sea oats. There was a small barn a few dozen yards from the gate, white paint long sun-bleached and sea-weathered to a comfortable grey, but there was no fence for the horse she had mentioned. The wind caught Essa’s hair, dragged the long tails of her shirt up over her bare legs as she crossed the headland and then the dogs joined her, brindle coats shining in the sun as they romped merrily around her feet, joyous barks ringing out against the wind.

Cullen could only marvel. How she had come to build such a haven while stepping into the dark of Kirkwall each night was a mystery that spoke of more magic than any he had yet encountered and he wondered, not for the first time since meeting her, what sort of creature Essa could possibly be.

Maker’s breath. He wasn’t expecting the lighthouse or for the grey and white tower to confirm just how far they were from Kirkwall. He was still staring, squinty through the bright sunshine, jaw slack at when Essa returned.

“You’re the keeper of the Midway?” he babbled inanely as she stepped up beside him.

Midway wasn’t truly the halfway point between Ostwick and Kirkwall, but it was the closest useful point. The depot that they had stopped at would have been for Seaside, Cullen realized, a lost oceanfront village that had once catered to Kirkwall’s wealthy when they were looking to escape streets and skies choked with “progress.” The lighthouse beyond was an old one, only used during the worst storms. A cautionary signal to give ships their bearings and warn them off of the rocky shoals that were rarely a threat during most weather. It made too much sense that Essa would be its caretaker.

“I am not,” she shook her head. “Though I’ve been trained. I sublet the cottage from the caretaker. He would rather live in Seaside without all the ‘electric noise’. He suffers enough of that for his duty.”

Essa pointed back behind them and down at the shore below. In the distance Cullen saw the dingy storefronts and rotting boardwalk of the long-abandoned vacation spot.

“I thought Seaside had been empty since the Blight,” he said. “It’s supposed to be haunted.”

“Ghost stories, Rutherford?” Essa snickered. “You surprise me.”

She scooted by him, balanced a basket of eggs on her hip to open the screen door.

“Grab some dill from the pot there,” she said, kicking her foot toward a small planter overflowing with green.

She stepped into the kitchen, pausing only to slip out of her boots, and Cullen grabbed a handful of herb before he followed.

“Besides,” she explained, placing her basket on the counter as he closed the door behind her. “It’s the whole shore that’s haunted. Too many souls lost on the shoals.”

She dropped her voice into a low, shaking menace.

Cullen laughed. “Wasn’t the last lighthouse operator driven mad?”

The mirth in her face was contagious. “I’m afraid he and I started that rumor. Keeps people away. We like the quiet out here.”

She turned on the faucet, nodded for him to rinse the dill he was still holding. Cullen glanced out the kitchen window in time to see a wild pony cantering gently toward the barn, black mane and tail a thick with wind snarls.

“Yours?” he asked, though he couldn’t imagine he needed to.

“Geri,” Essa confirmed, shoulder almost brushing his arm as she crowded in to look out the window with him. “He wanders. Stays fat on sea oats and scrub, but I keep fresh water for him and throw some sweet grain in for his breakfast.”

Cullen shut off the tap, dropped the dill in a colander that was already in the sink.

“This place is…” he shook his head, floundering for words. “It’s unlike anywhere I’ve ever been.”

Essa glanced away, took a quick step back, but not before he had seen her heart in her eyes. This place was precious to her. Sacred. As it should have been.

“I’m glad you like it.” She nodded toward the kitchen table and a bright square of yellow telegram paper. “Came to the depot last night. We’re to stay away from Kirkwall for a few days.”

“Days.” He could live an entire lifetime in a day like today.

She nodded and began opening and closing cabinets as if she suddenly couldn’t remember what she was looking for.

“I have a telephone, if there’s someone you need to call, but you’ll have to be careful what you say. You can’t tell them where you are.”

“I’ll call later.” Much later if he had his way.

Cullen turned toward her then, and whatever she saw in his face must have warned her of his intentions. Her breath caught and she lifted her chin, gaze wary as he crossed the short distance between them.

“Essa?” He was asking. He would ask her more directly if he had to.

“I think I liked it better when you were calling me ‘Trevelyan’.”

“Really?” He reached for her then, slowly, giving her all the time in the world to pull away or curse him for the fool he knew he was, but she stepped into his arms without hesitance, as if she had been moving toward his embrace all along.

“No, not really,” she whispered.

She smelled like sunshine and salt air and lemon balm and when he finally kissed her, there was a shiver of mint on her tongue. He pulled away quickly and she leaned against him, dragging his lips back toward hers.

“Wait.”

“I’m going to kick you,” she muttered.

He smiled. “Not that kind of wait. I should have asked for a toothbrush or something before I kissed you.”

Essa’s laughter bounced brightly through the sun-soaked cottage. “You taste a little like elfroot,” she assured him. “And a lot like my new favorite mistake. Now, come back here. I like the feel of you in my space, Rutherford. Why don’t you make me forget what a terrible thing that probably is.”

*

She was trembling and he had done nothing more than kiss her.  His hands cupped her face, thumbs sweeping in lazy drifts over her cheeks as he gently turned her head this way for a long, drugging pull of his lips, then that, for a gentle play of teeth and tongue. Essa clung to him, the familiar cotton of her favorite shirt was somehow foreign, an exotic stretch over broad shoulders and quietly shifting muscles. How could he be so calm when she was smoldering?

Essa reached for the buttons of his borrowed shirt, but his hands fell to hers.

“We have all day,” Cullen murmured against her lips and she shuddered, body a brittle line caught somewhere between desire and fear.

All day? She didn’t quite understand whether that was meant as a threat or a promise.

“You’re always in such a hurry.” She felt his lips curve against her chin in admonishment. “Don’t you ever slow down? Take your time?”

Her head fell back, neck useless for anything but receiving the wandering line of kisses he was placing over her drunken pulse.

“I always take,” Essa replied breathlessly. “Exactly as much time as I need—“

His mouth opened wide against her flesh and she gasped out the rest. “For everything that I do.”

“Mmhmmm…” the teasing sound rumbled into her throat as he sucked once, lightly, then drew away. “You need to expand your horizons.”

“And you’re the expert?” She opened her eyes, expecting a playful taunt, but Cullen’s tawny eyes were serious.

“No,” he confessed. “Not even remotely, but I would take my time with you, if you will let me.”

She had made it clear, she thought, too many times that she wanted him, but something told her that wasn’t what he was asking.

“You aren’t going to let me have my quick and mindless way with you, are you?” she asked placing her hand over his heart.

His lips twitched and laughter brightened his gaze. “Perhaps another time.”

She stared at him, struck mute, a dozen admissions she would never make crowding the back of her mind. She had already conceded too much to both of them. All the kind of truths that belonged here, by the sea, in the world she had built without shadows. Now that he was here, she didn’t feel quite as safe as she had been.

Andraste save her, the man was beautiful standing in her kitchen, bare feet on the clean linoleum, sunlight shining through his hair. Whatever he usually did to it was not in keeping with its natural disposition. His curls were soft this morning, wind-kissed and sleep-tousled, one errant lock falling onto his forehead.

“Essa?”

His heart was pounding beneath her hand and Essa realized he had mistaken her silence for hesitance.

“I’ll let you.” She was afraid to lift her voice more than a whisper. She knew that it would break beneath the weight of her consent.

His kissed her once, a quick, clinging seal before he confused her utterly. “You want to stop,” he said simply. “You say so.”

“You…” Essa shook her head, tried—and failed—not to scowl at him in confusion. “You’re a very odd man, Cullen Rutherford.”

“And you are like no one I have ever known.” He took her hand from his chest, brought her fingers to his lips and kissed the tip of each one before he led to her to a kitchen chair. “So I suppose we’re even.”

She couldn’t stop the look of suspicion from crossing her face as he sat down sideways, his wounds to open air, but she let him pull her down into his lap, let him settle her back against the softly protesting vinyl. She watched him, waiting for the doublecross, unable to imagine what it could be but knowing that this…this sweetness couldn’t be normal. Cullen continued unperturbed, draping her arm over his shoulders and gathering her close. She leaned against him, body tight and defensive.

Her traitorous fingers swept into the shorter hair at the nape of his neck and he smiled. Essa’s scowl deepened. This was not…well this couldn’t be right. Before she could accuse him of complete ridiculousness, Cullen kissed her.

“There.” He hummed once, the little sound of satisfaction traveling from her lips and straight down her spine. “Perfect.”

It wasn’t perfect. It was maddening. Terrifying. She had never felt so vulnerable, so off balance. Both feet literally off the ground. Essa moved against him restlessly in retaliation, was mildly gratified to find that not all of him was so infernally patient. He grunted and she smirked at him.

“There,” she managed a reasonable mimic before he kissed her again. Kissed her until her eyes fell shut and she forgot that she had just been thinking of hitting him.

“Maker’s breath,” he pulled away, and she struggled to open her eyes. She found him staring, an intensity to the sunbright amber that threatened to tear down every wall she had fought so hard to build. “You are beautiful.”

He had to know what he was doing to her, but his hands were on her face again, dragging her back to his lips before she could call him on it. And she would, she thought, nerves and temper giving way to desire. Later.

Much later.

She sank into him, trapped by nothing more than the careful coaxing of his mouth, the greedy tangle of her fists in his hair. His hands trailed to her neck, fingers whispering like platitudes as they lingered over old scars. His arms wrapped around her and Essa turned at the waist, melding the soft ache of her breasts to the unyielding coolness of his body with a such profound relief she thought she would weep.

She kissed him back, too hard she knew, but she wanted him, all of him, and the sudden certainty was nearly overwhelming. It wasn’t enough. She needed his skin on hers, she thought desperately. There was too little of them touching. Beneath her bare legs was old linen. Between the rapid beat of their hearts were too many layers of cotton flannel. She could feel him, rigid potential pressed against the curve of her ass, but still he kissed her as if it were Sunday morning and not their first time but the hundredth.

“Cullen,” she breathed into his mouth. “I don’t beg.”

He smiled and she licked against his teeth, trying to get closer to him. He sucked her bottom lip into his mouth, bit down just hard enough that she moaned.

“All day,” he reminded her as she pulled away for a full gulp of air.

“I will kill you,” she said threatened without heat. “If you make me wait all day.”

“You’re a violent woman, Essa Trevelyan.” The lines around his eyes crinkled and for a moment all she could think was that he should smile more.

As if either of their lives bore such luxury.

“I am,” she agreed. “You would do well to remember that.”

She wiggled her hips against him, watched his eyes flutter closed for a heartbeat. “I could test your patience.”

He unbuttoned the first two buttons of her shirt, leaned forward to place a kiss in the hollow of her throat, then another just below that.

“I think we both know whose patience is being tested.” His hands moved, palms skimming the sides of her breasts through the cotton barrier of her undone shirt.  “I still can’t believe—“

But he shook his head, cast the fading end of his wondering into the quiet morning. When Essa tried, with lips nearly trembling, to ask for the rest he only answered with longer, sweeter kisses.

It wasn’t real, she thought, breath coming in short pants as she watched his hands move with subtle grace down the front of her body. This was something for poems and silly books and people who hadn’t been tainted by secrets and shadows and a world going dark. Sunlight moved across his face and she stared, trapped in the play of light over honeyed irises and fair skin. When he finally pushed her shirt back, she let him think it was the cool air of the kitchen that stole her breath, rather than the worship she saw stark and unguarded in his eyes.

“Are you cold?” he asked, lips hovering like cool silk above her the frantic pebbling of her skin.

“I don’t get cold,” she whispered, knowing that he didn’t believe her.

His cheek grazed the inside of her breast, a day and some change of beard growth rasping softly. Essa shuddered and watched helplessly–breath lodged so tightly in the back of her throat that she couldn’t have begged him if she wanted to–as he opened his lips over one tightly puckered nipple. She reached for breath, the sharp inhale lifting her breast to him in blatant offering. His mouth closed tight and cool over painfully fevered skin and Essa’s fingers closed into fists in his hair. His tongue swirled once, twice, around that pleasure-roughed peak and Essa knew that if she didn’t move—now—she was going to die.

“Cullen, please,” she tried to move her legs. She needed them around him, needed his hand between them, her hand between them, anything to alleviate the building pressure. “Please.”

His mouth stilled against her and she tugged not gently enough on his hair.

“That was an order,” she managed on a gasp. “Not—“

He swapped to the other breast, sucking strongly, just shy of too much and her denial rose, high and shrill before she choked back a scream. She reached blindly for the buttons on his shirt, heard one pop, clattering across the kitchen.

“Now,” she muttered, fumbling with the next. “You have to fu—“

The word caught on her tongue, wrong in ways that it had never been before and Cullen took advantage of her silence, kissed his way back up to her mouth with quick tender presses.

“Hang on,” he murmured against her lips. He stood, lifting her in his arms, legs amazingly steady given that Essa doubted hers were working.

“Oh, thank the Maker.” She was too grateful to give him the lie that she was perfectly capable of walking on her own.

Cullen chuckled. “What can I say? You make me greedy.”

She was grinning when he ducked into the bathroom with her and for a moment she faltered, barely recognizing the face of the woman who stared back at her in the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet. She looked…well, she looked happier than Essa could ever remember seeing her, hair passionswept, lips bright and swollen from so many kisses. Her eyes were deep and bottomless and sparking blue in the thin ring of flinty grey.

“Got it,” she said, forced cheer into her tone so that he wouldn’t hear her uncertainty.

“Two,” he said, expression so bland that Essa couldn’t help but laugh.

“Ambitious.” She grabbed three condoms and he smirked.

“I think one of us could manage to stumble back over here before we need a third,” he said drily.

“Ugh, you with the talking again.” Essa kissed him, nerves soothed too easily by banter. “Bed, now. Please.”

She had run out of laughter, and sometime in the short trek down the hall it seemed Cullen ran out of patience. Her mouth was on his neck, hands working at the buttons of his shirt. She bit down on his shoulder and he nearly dropped her, was forced to shift his hold on her. Essa had a second of smug pride as she wrapped her legs around his waist.

“I am not dropping you,” he grumbled into her neck, and then they shifted, lined up in a single perfect slid.

Essa’s back hit the wall. She threw out one hand, knocked down a small frame of pressed flowers as she scrambled for something to hold onto.

“Here is fine,” she mumbled. She was nearly senseless with longing, but she continued to fight with his shirt. She felt another button pop, heard it roll away over the hardwood floor. “Really.”

Cullen’s mouth was on her breasts again, as if he couldn’t decide which one needed the most attention. The answer was both, and if he ever got around to asking her, she would tell him. But–

“We are going to the bed,” he managed, teeth raking across one nipple.

“Fine.” He was being needless stubborn about something, but at least he wasn’t chiding her for her rush now.

They made it the last few paces to her room and Cullen sat down on the edge of the bed, a tangle still of arms, legs, and avarice. Somehow–a divine miracle, Essa was certain–they managed to get his shirt and pants off without putting too much unwanted space between their flushed bodies. By the time the finally sat, nothing between them but ragged desire, Essa’s hands were shaking so badly she dropped the condom. She scowled at him as he snagged it from the bed, making quick work of practicalities.

“You did this,” she accused, pressing her hands to his shoulders. Already she was on the cusp of orgasm.

“I believe,” he reached between them and his eyes fell closed, a look too close to reverence on his face as he touched her. “…both to blame.”

And the Maker makes three, Essa thought, just for good measure.

“Please tell me…” His thumb slipped across her and Essa slapped one hand over her mouth to keep from screaming.

“Anything.” Cullen promised.

She dropped her hand, managed to sound vaguely serious. “Tell me you are through with being patient.”

He smiled. “I am.”

“Thank–”

His lips brushed hers and Essa sank down over him, took him in with one sudden perfect movement that left them both breathless. His hand fell to her hips and for one endless moment, he held her still around him.

“Es—“

She stopped her name with her finger, shook her head at him, suddenly too raw, too open to whatever lay between them. It wasn’t just sex. The realization struck her like a ball of lightning, left every nerve in her body stinging between fight and flight and passion. Essa closed her eyes, afraid of what she would see in his, terrified of what he would see in hers.  His lips moved once over hers, testing, tasting, but he was as lost for air as she was. He pulled her to his chest. She could feel the warring drums of their hearts, and hers stuttered as his hands swept up her back, a slow sweet slide that made the embrace was more intimate that the tight joining of their bodies.

“No more waiting.”

She flexed her legs, rose up over him and slid down, again and again, until the repetition lost all meaning in perpetuity. She drove them both up, beyond reason and words, until she lost count of the number of times she shattered around him. Sunshine poured into the bedroom, bounced off bright walls and through airy curtains, spun like gold over sheets of fallen snow, but all Essa could see was flames, waiting with the brilliance of transfiguration.

She would not be the same after this.

“Essa?”

He touched her face, and she could smell her arousal on the tips of his fingers. She jerked her head in a terse nod, and he thrust up, meeting her, matching her. She turned her cheek toward his hand, kissed his knuckles. Warm, desperate clasps of her lips across old scars as pleasure spiked then crashed around them. Cullen held her gaze as his climax swept him, his arms banded around her as if her were sinking and she was his savior rather than the weight dragging him under.

No, she would not be the same after this, and she knew now that neither would he.

By the Mabari, Essa thought, clinging to him as her body threatened to shake apart. What had they done?

 


	5. Only Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More NSFW and fluff before the angst sets in.

For two days they dreamed by the Waking Sea, losing themselves and finding each other in the endless lifetimes of each new day. Kirkwall lay forgotten far beyond the cliffs, so much more than a lonesome train ride away. Essa had claimed the shoals at Midway were haunted, but Cullen couldn’t imagine it. Even his own ghosts were quiet in this place.  

He was surprised by how easily peace came to him here. How perfectly ordinary it felt to wake without the clamoring bustle of the cold, grey city outside the thin windows of his drab apartment. He lay in bed, breathing in the distant tumble of the ocean and watching sunrise paint the walls of Essa’s bedroom as he listened to the soft sounds of her moving through the cottage. She was humming this morning, a popular song from a few years back. He recognized the tune with a little twinge of worry. He had found himself singing it in the shower the night before.

“Do you think I’ll remember how you looked when you smiled?” Cullen sang the words softly along with her wobbling tune. ”Only forever, that’s putting it mild.”

He heard the clatter of dogfood as she dumped Greta and Soldier’s breakfast into their bowl. Soldier lifted his head from the foot of the bed, glanced at Cullen in askance.

“Go on,” he said, already too fond of the dog too. “She’s probably still mad that you chose to sleep with me last night.”

Soldier dropped down and ambled to the kitchen, nails clacking lightly on the hardwood floor. Cullen half-followed, stopping to brush his teeth and deliberately ignore the unkempt man who greeted him in the bathroom mirror. His face hadn’t seen a razor in two days and his hair was a mess of curls that had never been better than unruly. If he was honest, he would admit that he was absurdly pleased with the amount of sun he had soaked up the day before, lying nearly naked on the beach beside the most incongruous creature he had ever met.

At least now he knew the answer to how she came by her uninterrupted bronzed skin.

Essa was not the same woman Cullen had met in Kirkwall, though somehow he found the tough, no-nonsense brawler no less genuine than the half-wild woman who was completely comfortable lying naked on a blanket by the sea. He wondered again what could possibly keep her in Kirkwall.

“You’re making breakfast this morning, right?”

She was standing in the hall as Cullen stepped out of the bathroom. Her dark hair was somewhat brushed for once, pulled mostly back with a piece of kitchen twine. She was wearing yet another too-large flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, two buttons missing, one at the top, one at the bottom. He glanced down, could only shake his head at those abominable rubber boots.

Cullen couldn’t remember wanting anyone so badly.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Essa smiled, face shining like everything else at Midway, bright and unmarred. He reached out to pull her into his arms, marveling at how easily she moved into his embrace, how perfectly she fit, head beneath his chin. She lifted her mouth for a kiss, yielded slowly to his lazy exploration. Her arms slid around his waist, hands moving like glory up his back. He knew that she was checking his bandages, but the warm, careful touch was bliss. He mumbled something to that effect against her mouth and her tongue swept against his teeth. He caught her giggle with the beginnings of another kiss.

“You brushed your teeth.” Her eyes were the first grey pearling of dawn; he didn’t recognize his reflection in them either.

Cullen smiled, nuzzled her nose with his before dropping a peck on the freckles that dappled the crooked bridge. “I did.”

She was still teasing him about the brief moment the day before when he had kissed her good morning and then attempted to backtrack.

Essa leaned up on her toes, boots bumping awkwardly against his shins. His hands drifted to her waist, canted her more fully against him and she made an appreciative sound low in her throat when his erection pressed against her stomach.

“Look who’s in a hurry this morning.” She kissed him again, reached between them to drag her fingers over tautly stretched linen. Cullen groaned into her mouth, was trying to decide if he was going to unbutton her shirt or just pull it off over her head.

“Dammit.” Essa pulled away from him, eyes closed. “I have to feed the horse.”

Her fingers toyed listlessly with the drawstring of his pants. “But by the Mabari, hold that thought. I’ll be right back.”

She all but ran from the house, and he followed her to the porch, waited as she fled across the yard, boots making such a terrible racket that he could hear the heavy whomp over the sound of the surf. She wasn’t in the barn long enough for the blood to return to his head and he stood on the steps, unashamedly aroused despite the cool wind blowing in from the ocean. He grinned when she ducked back out, throwing herself into a sprint made clumsy by her shoes, hair flying behind her. Cullen caught her as she charged up the steps, momentum knocking them back toward the door. He kissed her laughing mouth, until she was warm and panting from more than her run. She slid down his body, and her feet had barely found the floor when she snagged the waist of his pants, one hand bold and teasing as she pulled a condom from the pocket of her shirt with the other.

“You’re keeping them on you now?” he asked with a surprised laugh. The sound was so unfettered he knew it couldn’t have come from him.

“I’ll give you every coin in the house if you don’t have one in your pocket,” she retorted flatly, slapping the foil envelope into his hand.

She stroked him one, twice, hand warm even through the barrier of soft linen. Her eyebrow raised expectantly.

“Your money is safe.” Cullen thought he did an admirable job of rolling eyes that were near to crossing. He sighed with feigned heaviness. “You really want to–?”

She glared at him.

“Out here, I mean.” Maker’s breath, they had certainly gotten past the “are you sures?” yesterday. Not that he thought either of them would ever stop checking in their own ways.

“Take too long to kick the dogs out,” Essa said, fingers making quick work of the drawstring. “And it’s a beautiful morning.”

She turned slightly from him then, gestured out toward the sea. The wind caught at her hair, fluttered the tails of her shirt and lifted them high over her hips. Cullen stopped thinking. He caught her hip with one hand, turned her completely away from him and pulled her back against his chest. Essa’s breath left her on a low hum and she stood on her toes, pushing against him, hips moving restless and wanton.Cullen thrust forward once, the most brazen question he had yet asked and she answered on a moan.

“Yes,” she told him, voice low with greed. She reached back toward him with both hands, pulling her shirt up higher and dragging farther down the linen that was already sliding from his hips.

It wasn’t long before he was inside of her; it took blighted forever. But then there was nothing but desire’s determined climb, the tight, wet heat of her, and Cullen forgot that endless moment of frustration. Every nerve in his body sighed with relief. Ached, begged for more, always more of her, of them, of whatever dream they were happily trapped in. There was a fraying, muted moment, when pleasure bore the edge of desperation’s pain, that Cullen felt he watched them from somewhere beyond, unable to quite comprehend that this single untamed morning was one that he was living.

“It can’t be real,” Essa gasped, hands braced on the wide porch rail, hips pressing back to meet each forward movement. “Maker, Cullen. It can’t be.”

There was more than lust overwhelming the smoke of her voice. He pulled away from her, body cursing him five kinds of fools, but he turned her back to him, kissed her too hard, too desperately for her not see everything he felt.

“One more day,” he said, lifting her ass to the rail, sliding back home with a hard snap that left her shuddering around him.

“One more,” she agreed, gaze faltering from his, then coming back, holding with grim determination.

He slid his arms beneath her legs, pulled her knees higher, brought them both near to falling with the sharp perfection of the new angle. Essa’s fingers scrambled for purchase, found the railing a poor support and she clutched for his shoulders. He watched her eyes glaze bright before they shut.

“Cullen.”

His name was between her teeth and then she was trembling again, harder than before. He leaned forward, took the peak of one nipple in his mouth, rubbed wet flannel back and forth over her with his teeth. Her head fell back, throat a graceful curve and he lost himself in her frantic pulse. Her voice struggled against the pleasure that built between them, and when she finally managed to call his name again, when she lifted praises and affirmations to the morning, Cullen followed her down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is an expanded and renamed chapter (it was Strange Favors) but a LOT has been added after the original piece so be sure to catch up on it. It also concludes Act 2. Yay for organization! :D
> 
> (seriously thank you for your patience, this thing has been a little nuts)


	6. A Game for Fools

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Formerly Strange Favors, this piece has been expanded (over double the word count) and renamed (to fit with my 1940s lovesongs theme for Act 2).
> 
> The mysteries surrounding Essa continue to pile up. Cullen knows he's playing a dangerous game, but is there a better kind?

The house was packed. Cullen had never seen such a crowd, a tangle of cops and criminals, patrons from Hightown, Lowtown, and Darktown all jostling for stools and varying qualities of whiskey.  Cari was draped across the piano in a pool of ivory silk, long black gloves slipping down her arms just enough that the crowd was hoping she would give up and remove them. She tugged them up with a hint of a gimlet smile, just enough to let the audience know that she was ahead of them, remind them that they wouldn’t get that kind of show at the Tourney. It didn’t stop most them from hoping, any more than it stopped the lavish gifts that she mostly returned.  

It was her first night back since they scattered Merdrat’s ashes to the sea, Cari face hidden beneath a broad veiled hat and wide dark glasses. Of those caught in the blast at the docks, Merdrat had languished longest with his injuries.  It had surprised no one when Cari inherited the Tourney, but even Essa had seemed shocked at what appeared to be her sister’s genuine mourning.

“You always hurt the ones you love…”

The sax lifted a croon toward the ceiling and Cari sat up slowly, back arching, hair hanging down to brush the high shine of the grand. She spun away as the notes shivered to a sob, sang a line about longing and broken trust back over one creamy shoulder with a velvet glance.  Her fox stole slid just a little lower down her back and a swell of desperate applause rose from the bar. A gift from Merdrat, Essa had told him once, nose wrinkling at the fur. Because the association was useful for both him and Cari, and because Merdrat knew Essa would kill him–slowly–if he laid a hand on her sister. Cullen didn’t know the extent of Merdrat’s involvement with the Carta, but he knew the dwarf hadn’t been afraid of much.

Everyone, it seemed, was afraid of Essa. Maker, preserve him, even Cullen, though that was now the least of his problems where she was concerned.  Fear he could handle, but longing was much more dangerous. Essa glanced toward him then, as if his thoughts had called to her through the smoky din. Cullen lifted his glass in salute, was unsurprised when she stared through him.

She had warned him that it would be this way. That whatever had transpired between them in the blinding sun would count for nothing in Kirkwall’s shadows. She wore her suit like armor, a grey pin-stripe so dark it was nearly as black as the heart she was accused of not having. The shirt below it was templar red; it glowed like spilt blood in the sparse lights over the bar. Cullen had never seen the color anywhere but on her lips, and he couldn’t help thinking that she wore it tonight just to thumb her nose at the brass and reds. The suede of her oxfords was the same color, with plain leather laces and a continental heel beneath which lay too many crushed egos. His included.

He had not wanted to be so forgettable, but it seemed he was.

“There are safer games in the Tourney.” Flissa’s warning was a murmur of invitation as she leaned across the bar to refill his drink. She touched his arm, an almost innocuous touch, lips lifted in a curve of dark wine. Hers was another pretty face that Cullen barely noticed. He should probably take her up on both the warning and the offer.

He gave her a smile that never reached his eyes. “What makes you think I’m one for games?”

And if he was, it certainly wasn’t safe ones. Cullen reached in his pocket for his wallet and Flissa shook her head.

“You got a tab now,” she reminded him. “Settle up at the end of each week or I’ll send the muscle after you.”

She laughed at her own joke, and Cullen nodded absently, glancing back in the direction of the stage. It had been weeks, and he still couldn’t take his eyes off of Essa. She leaned against one end of the bar, a heavy glass of scotch—neat—held in one gloved hand, an unlit cigarette in the other, as she scanned the crowd for potential problems. As Cullen watched, she brought the glass to her mouth, chin tipping up just enough to not break her line of sight as the whisky slid, dark and golden, between lips he still dreamed about tasting.

Her hair gleamed like mink in the murky light. She had parted it on the side, pinned it back from her face in a more polished version of her usual. She would have looked nearly as glamorous as her sister, were it not for the flat stare and once broken nose. It wasn’t false, that armor that she wore, but he knew what lay beneath it now, and he would always see her laughing, sprawled naked across a flowered quilt, sun shining on her hair, the surf a tumble of grey-green behind her.

Over the course of the night, Cullen had watched half a dozen men toss back a shot of courage and make their way down the bar to offer her a light. None had made it to her, each losing his nerve before he reached her. Cullen hid a smirk as the more recent veered off into the crowd, retreating from her cold regard.

Flissa laughed, patted his arm. “You change your mind, sugar, you know where to find me.”

Her fingers dragged lazily over his arm as she walked away. Cullen’s gaze followed her, not sure what to make of the bold suggestion. Women didn’t generally make such advances on him. He might not be as dangerous as Essa, but most could look at him and see he wasn’t worth the trouble that dogged his heels.

“She’s like that with all the pretty ones,” Essa said, appearing beside him as if by magic.

She had moved while he was distracted by Flissa’s flirtation. Now she stood between him and the next stool, hip hitched the bar, the warmth of her body too close to his for the charade she wanted him to maintain.

“I’m not pretty.” It was his first retort and not the best. Cullen hid a grimace behind the rim of his glass.

“Oh, you’re pretty.” She might have been commenting on the wretched weather.

He glanced down at her cigarette. “Can I offer you a light?”

Her lips twitched, trapped in a perpetual waver between a smirk and a smile. “Oh, this?” She placed the cigarette on the bar, rolled it toward the shadows, watched it drop over the edge. “No, that’s just to give me something to do with my hands when I’m too tempted to punch things.”

She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

“I need you to feed my animals.” The words were almost lost in a round of applause as Cari finished her number.

Cullen blinked. “Excuse me?”

Why did he always feel two steps behind the cursed woman?

“Two reds are about to ruin my evening. Take me in for questioning.” She shrugged. “My animals will need feeding in the morning.”

Cullen frowned. “Why me?”

She smiled slightly. “You’re the only one who knows where I live. I’d use my phone call for Dennet, but he won’t be at the depot this late, and I should really call Cari, let her know that I’m alright.”

She finished her drink in one long draught and put her glass down on the bar.  Cullen watched, caught like prey as she leaned in closer to press her lips just below his ear. Her breath was warm on his neck as she slid something small and heavy into his jacket pocket. “Note’s on the ice box.”

Before he could answer, she was jerked back from him.  A templar he didn’t recognize had Essa by the elbow. The man hauled her away from Cullen.

“Ester Donya Trevelyan.” She rolled her eyes at the official tone. “You’re under arrest.”

Essa shook her head once at Cullen’s questioning gaze and reached blindly for the hat Flissa slid to her across the polished bar. She glanced briefly toward his pocket as she yanked her elbow from the officer’s grasp.

“You gonna cuff me, Mick, or can we do this without a scene?” She settled the fedora on her head and nodded toward the door.

Mick sighed, shot a look over his shoulder toward his partner. “Just come quietly, Trevelyan. I don’t want to add to your charges.”

She smirked. “You don’t have anything to charge me with and you know it, but I’ll come. You still make the best coffee in the Order.”

*

Essa stared into her coffee cup, watched the fluorescent lights’ reflections bend in rings across the black while the office noises droned on behind her. The clack of Bess’s silverline was sporadic, the girl too distracted by recent events to maintain any momentum at the keys. Phones were ringing, shrill and endless, one over the back of the other. Dora was cracking her gum while she took down notes. If the woman hadn’t been hell with a gun and one of the best skeptics in town, Essa thought Aubreg would have long had her fired or transferred, but the Knight-Commander prized usefulness over all else.

It was certainly why he kept Essa around.

“Trevelyan? You with us?”

Every tumbling clackety-clack…clack. clack. was making Essa wonder how much damage she could do to a human skull with Bess’s typewriter. It wasn’t light, she was pretty sure she could kill a man with one, but it’d be a lot messier than her gun.

“I’m fine.” She didn’t glance up from her cup. “Everything is in my reports.”

“Except for the three days you were missing from Kirkwall.” Mick pulled out the chair across from her, metal legs scraping loud across the interrogation room floor.

“Can you close the door at least?” Essa groused, before he could sit down. “Before I go out there and break Bess’s fingers?”

“You wouldn’t,” Mick said, smile tightening around the butt of his cigarette.

Essa watched the end flare bright and orange.It was the only warmth in the room.Everything else was bland and institutional. Beige walls, concrete floor, unreliable buzzing lights. If they had brought her here for a true interrogation, she would have died of boredom before she cracked.

“No, I wouldn’t.” She sipped her coffee. “But I will throw her typewriter into the street, and I don’t think you want that kind of scene.”

“Eh…” he shrugged, blue eyes flashing with easy affection. How long had they been doing this? “You’ve a reputation in this town for being volatile. Wouldn’t even make the papers.”

She couldn’t argue with that, but he got up and kicked the door closed. Essa checked a sigh of relief as the cacophony was immediately silenced.

“Thank you.” She slid her cup onto the table, stared past him at the reflective surface of the surveillance mirror. She made a show of straightening her hair and winked. She would bet her next paycheck that Joe was on the other side of the glass.

“You alright?”

She wasn’t, but she also wasn’t going to burden Mick with her troubles, not when he was deflecting her temper with such faithful aplomb. He was the most unflappable of Kirkwall’s templars. Aubreg had transferred him in Ostwick after he made the move himself. Mick was a rarity in the Order. A family man, three bouncing blonde daughters and spitfire wife. Wasn’t much could shake him and that included Essa. She liked him. Better than most somedays.

“Long few weeks is all.” She shook her head, kicked her feet up on the aluminum table and balanced on the back legs of her chair. “You ever get that information I asked for?”

Mick took a slow drag from his cigarette, blew smoke toward the chipped paint on the ceiling.

“You aren’t going to like it,” he said grimly. He waved his hand at the glass behind him and Essa waited. “Above our paygrade. Even yours.”

The door opened and Joe sauntered in, a tall drink of elegance that always made the woman’s uniform look better than Essa’s fine suit. “Long few weeks?” she asked, stooping to drop a kiss on Essa’s cheek.

She smelled of good earth, climbing roses, and gin. If Joe was drinking it had been a longer few weeks than Essa thought.

“Yes, ma’am.” Essa started to pull her feet down, but the Knight-Captain waved her off.

Joe was another transplant. There weren’t many of Kirkwall’s dishonored templars left in the city, not after the disaster a few years back.  Most had been transferred to Ferelden for evaluation, rehabilitation, retraining. No few had been tried and imprisoned. Had she survived the mage riots, the former Knight-Commander would probably have been executed. No one had seemed overly heartbroken that she met justice on Kirkwall’s streets.

“Ester?”

“Sorry. Long—“

“Yes, dear. Long few weeks. We know.” She patted Essa’s shoulder in comfort. It always surprised Essa how cool her hands were. Such wonderfully dark skin should feel as warm as the sun. “The fire at the docks had us all scrambling, especially with so many of Merdrat’s closest taken out in the blast. We were lucky your sister inherited so much of his work.”

Essa nodded absently. “Yes, Cari should be the only one you need now.” She frowned, picked up her coffee again, fighting every impulse to ask—again—if they had what she needed. “I suppose we should talk reassignment next?”

“Not quite yet,” Joe said. “We don’t have things nearly so tucked away as that. And you have another problem.”

Joe handed her a slip of yellow legal paper.

“What’s this?”

“The information you asked for. We can’t touch anything official. Records are sealed. Those that aren’t are blacked out. This is just collected rumor and hearsay.”

Essa glanced up at her, eyes narrowed. “You could have brought me this two months ago. Or I could have—“

“What?” Joe asked. “Mingled with the reds down at the tavern buying gossip with booze? We caught enough trouble when you and Hawke were brawling a name for yourselves.”

‘Brawling’. Right…Essa snorted, her first true laugh in weeks. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“That’s the official story,” Mick grumbled, taking her coffee from her and finishing it off with a grimace. She might like the stuff, but he often bemoaned the lack of proper beans. “And you only exist in the official stories, Trevelyan, so give us a break.”

Essa smiled. “Yes, ser.” She started to unfold the paper.

“Save it for the train,” Mick said, shoving lock of white hair out of his eyes.

“You kicking me out of Kirkwall, Mick?”

“Yeah, we’ve had enough fires lately.” He nodded at the paper in her hands and Essa felt her heart stall, a cold stone in her chest. “You’re not going to like it.”

*

The yard was quiet. Dawn was just beginning to creep over the over the headland. Essa stood beneath the coming morning and saw only old blood on the horizon. The cottage was quiet. She wondered when he had arrived and if he had slept. He moved around her kitchen as if it were his own. Stripped down to his shirt sleeves, cuffs rolled up nearly to his elbows. The radio was pouring sad and lonesome through the open window and Cullen sang along, stopping every now and then in whatever he was cooking to lift his spatula microphone first to his own lips and then down to Soldier’s happy face. Cullen and the song hit a high note and Soldier howled along companionably.

Andraste, be with her, Essa prayed. Bad enough that she had felt this way when she suspected him of being a red lyrium trafficking criminal, but now she knew the truth. She was a bigger fool than she had thought.  Somehow the chastisement did not ease the knot around her heart, or the fury that ran like poison through her veins.

She lingered on the bottom step, staring through the screen door, feeling like a stranger in her own haven. She did not usually bring such darkness here. Greta was sprawled on the rug in front of it. The mabari lifted her head, tongue lolling and Cullen turned toward her, smile tugging the corner of her mouth.

“You’re home then.” He opened the door without looking and the scent of bacon and eggs drifted out ahead of him. At the barn, Chanty crowed in a valiant effort to hurry the sun and Essa felt the knot in her chest tighten. For a moment she couldn’t breathe.

“Knight-Captain,” she said.

Cullen stiffened, arm a hard line as he continued to hold open the door for her.

“That is no longer my title.” His words were soft. There was pain in them as Essa brushed by him into the kitchen.

“No, I suppose it isn’t.”

She followed her routine—one foot in front of the either, right?—left him standing in her kitchen surrounded by too many unspoken questions as she walked through the cottage to her work closet. She took off her hat, stowed it in its box. Hung up her jacket, took the time to dust the wool with a clothes brush. Every motion was a careful mimic of precious habit and an utter farce. What a liar she was! No better than he, though her own sins she could at least sleep with.

Essa stepped out of her shoes, kicked them into the bottom of the closet, and walked back to the kitchen carefully avoiding reflective surfaces on her return.  She knew what she would see and she wasn’t yet ready to meet her own eyes.

“Are you alright?”

Her holster was in plain sight, her sidearm snug in well-tended leather, silver and black obvious against her red shirt. If she turned a certain way her badge would be on equal display. Essa glanced up at him, saw genuine concern in fine lines around whisky gold eyes.

“Oh, you mean the arrest?” She waved the question away when she wanted to shout at him.

“What else?” She could sense him waiting, patient as ever.

Essa shook her head.  Too much else, she thought.

“Outside, you two.” She patted each dog once, affection hoarded, too afraid that she would crumble beneath their usual adoration. Cullen opened the back door for them; he had to yet to move from it, standing wounded beside the stove.

“You know they still whisper your title.”

She stalked around the kitchen table, hands held in tight fists at her side. Cullen shut off the stove and moved the pan of bacon from the hot eye. Essa leaned against the counter by the sink, stared out across the yard.

“I didn’t know it was you, of course," she continued quietly. “I didn’t come to Kirkwall until after the brass and reds had cleaned up the politics. The streets were still a mess though, and the ones who’d yet to go underground were hardly people they were so terrified.”

She gripped the counter with one hand, knuckles as white as the formica as she remembered so many frightened faces. More than once she had hoped to meet him on the streets. Give him back a little of what he had doled out in the Chantry’s name.

“Like some medieval bogeyman. Stannard’s Knight they call you.”

Cullen flinched, but he held her gaze. She wasn’t surprised. She had known the bastard was as ruthless as she was. “Not so shining, I’d wager.”

“I’ve made no secret of my past,” he said, stepping fully into the room. He didn’t crowd her, but he came damn close. Her pulse raced from more than fury and Essa’s rage ratcheted up another notch. “Merdrat and Flissa—“

“Knew nothing!” She hissed interrupting him. “They would have told me.”

But she couldn’t be sure.

“You’re a sympathizer then.”

His lips twisted, nearly a sneer before he seemed to think better of it. An expressionless mask settled over his face instead. Essa laughed, the sound was bleak as sunlight crept through the curtains in to warm the kitchen.

“I would hardly have to be.” She shook her head helplessly. “To condemn what you’ve done.”

Fire bloomed, bright around her heart and Essa breathed shallowly trying to get her temper under some semblance of control. She wondered bitterly how he would react, knowing he had gotten so close to an apostate, and she was sorely tempted to tell him.

“So what is your title?” she demanded, pushing in hopes that he would push back, give her anger an edge of righteousness. “If it is no longer Knight-Captain?”

“I have no title.” The words were both true and false and revealed far too much.

“We both know that’s a lie,” Essa whispered.

She pushed off of the counter and he misunderstood her move. Later, she might concede that if she had been staring herself in the eyes she would have suspected her of going for a weapon too, but she wasn’t conceding anything just then. He caught her elbows in a bruising grip, holding her hands away from the weapons he knew she carried.

“Is it agent?” she spat. “Or Seeker?”

She didn’t let him keep hold of her long, throwing her body weight into a twist of arms and legs that flung her away from him and shoved him back against the sink. He watched her closely, nostrils flared with the first display of temper she had seen and she wanted–so badly–to see what further damage she could do to his implacable veneer.

“Who do you work for now?”  

“You know who I work for.” He had the utter gall to look hurt by her accusation.

Essa snorted. “Is that really how we’re going to do this?” She glared at him. “Alright, fine.”

“Your cover is blown, Rutherford.”

She didn’t waste her time trying to read his inscrutable expression. Essa turned her back to him, let him get a good look at the brass and red shield secured to her holster. “And now so is mine, but before I fire you on behalf of The Tourney and kick you out of my cottage for my own sake, why don’t you tell me why the entire Kirkwall Order can’t scrape together even a copy of your records?”

She spun around to face him, hands on her hips. “And do not say it’s above my paygrade.”

He stared at her, and she was only marginally gratified by the look of utter shock on his face. She doubted many people surprised him anymore, but he had gotten beneath her guard too so she supposed it was only fair.

“You…work for the templars?” Cullen rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, gaze going distant. She watched him put the pieces together with a grim sort of awe on his face. “Well, fuck me.”

“Not again,” she grated, snapping him back. “Fool me once…”

Cullen sighed. “I was never trying to fool you, Essa.”

The sadness in his voice knocked her back. She knew it was a sucker punch, but that didn’t stop her from taking it right on the chin.

“Maybe we fooled each other then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus ends Act 2. :D Tell me your thoughts?


End file.
